1. Technical Field
Various embodiments relate to a semiconductor apparatus and, more particularly, to a semiconductor apparatus capable of reading data stored in a resistor or a cell.
2. Related Art
A transistor may be used in various ways in an electronic apparatus such as a semiconductor device. Each transistor has a gate, a drain, and a source, and allows current to flow through a channel that is formed between the drain and the source when a voltage higher than its threshold voltage is applied to the gate. Transistors are generally classified into N-channel metal oxide semiconductor (NMOS) transistors and P-channel MOS (PMOS) transistors. The NMOS transistors have difficulty transferring high voltages while PMOS transistors have difficulty transferring low voltages.
Even though transistors are widely used as switching devices in electronic apparatus, both NMOS transistors and PMOS transistors have difficulty in transferring both high and low voltages. Particularly, when an NMOS transistor is coupled between a power supply voltage and a ground voltage, the NMOS transistor transfers a voltage that is dropped from the power supply voltage by the threshold voltage. Therefore, the NMOS transistor is not adequate for a switching device that needs to transfer information that is sensitive to voltage or current magnitude. One possible embodiment for transferring high voltage through an NMOS transistor is to apply an even higher voltage to the gate of the NMOS transistor. However, this embodiment requires additional circuitry to generate the voltage applied to the gate of the NMOS transistor, which is higher than the general power supply voltage, and thus requires additional space in the electronic apparatus.